Earth Day 2014: Celebrate progress and rise to the challenge of climate change (Commentary)

We must turn our attention to the environmental challenge of the century: climate change. It is the biggest environmental threat humankind has faced.

Cornelius B. Murphy Jr., Ph.D., is senior fellow for Environmental and Sustainable Systems at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He was president of the college from 2000 to 2013.

By Cornelius B. Murphy Jr.

In Central New York, we have reason to celebrate the progress we have made in improving our environment but we must also commit to embracing tomorrow's challenges.

Cornelius B. Murphy Jr.Courtesy of SUNY ESF

Our water resources have improved: conditions in Onondaga Lake, Onondaga Creek, Nine Mile Creek and Ley Creek have improved since 1969, when the National Environmental Policy Act was signed. Our beloved Finger Lakes have been stabilized. For this, we thank those who helped protect and restore these resources. Credit goes to Onondaga County, Honeywell, former Congressman Jim Walsh, the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation, the city of Syracuse and the businesses that implemented pretreatment and water pollution-control programs.

We now recognize our waste as assets that must be recovered and recycled. We are undertaking pilot programs to isolate food waste and accelerate its conversion into compost and biogas. Our incredible Adirondacks appear to be on the mend after the assault from acid rain. Our urban forests are being enhanced through Onondaga County's Save the Rain program even as they are challenged by forest pests. Our air quality has improved through CENTRO's acquisition of compressed natural gas-powered buses, the use of better emission-control devices on our vehicles, the introduction of oxygenation additives in transportation fuels and the availability of improved high-efficiency furnaces and boilers.

We in Central New York have demonstrated more care for our environment and natural
resources than we did before the first Earth Day in 1970. But as we take credit for our progress, we must not reduce our diligence.

We need to recognize the assets that helped guide us over the last 44 years and, more
importantly, the role they need to play in the future. You can't make progress without a caring community, responsive political leadership, strong environmental engineering assets, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, ethical business leadership, the Syracuse Center of Excellence for Environmental and Energy Systems, the sustainability plans adopted by the city of Syracuse, Onondaga County and various leaders in Central New York. And we must thank the professionals who make the environmental control systems work, and include the crews that collect recyclables and operate the wastewater management systems.

Now we must turn our attention to the environmental challenge of the century: anthropogenic influences on climate change. This is the biggest environmental threat humankind has faced.

According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists, the global average temperature over land and ocean surfaces for January 2014 was the highest since 2007 and the fourth highest for the month since reliable record keeping began
in 1880.

If you want to know more, read the report released last month by a committee of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which states: "The
evidence linking human activities to climate change is as strong as the data
supporting that smoking causes lung cancer."

Consider what the scientific community knows:

• Some 97 percent of climate scientists agree humans have changed the climate.

• Extreme weather events are likely to become worse over the next 10
to 20 years.

• The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million last year.

There are factors other than greenhouse gases that affect the Earth's weather extremes, including volcanic eruptions, the sun's energy output, changing ocean currents and natural changes in CO2. But these factors can't explain the rapid change in global temperature. Look at the numbers:

• Over the last 100 years, the Earth's atmosphere has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

• If CO2 continues to increase at the current rate, the Earth could warm another 4 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.

• The upper 75 meters of our oceans have warmed by 0.11 degrees Centigrade per decade over the last four decades.

• Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Arctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a sobering report March 30. The Fifth Assessment Report was prepared by a panel of several hundred respected scientists from around the world. The news is not good. The report is clear: "Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions of snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in some climate extremes ... It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."

Unless we adopt a global program to sharply reduce the release of greenhouse gases, the report suggests, we will see an increase in extreme weather and climate events, global sea level increases of greater than 3.2 millimeters per year, increases in
ocean acidity, rapid loss in sea ice and reduced global food production.

I am struck by a statement in the report: "Throughout the 21st century,
climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty
reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and
create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging
hotspots of hunger." This projects a difficult future unless we reduce emissions and implement adaptation plans.

We have a plan in Central New York to help address the issue. It is the Vision CNY-Central New York Regional Sustainability Plan, prepared by the Central New York Regional Planning Board in concert with the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council. It should be accepted as our roadmap to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and improve the quality of life in Central New York.

On a national level, we are in desperate need of a greenhouse gas-reduction strategy and public policy that drives market-based solutions, such as a carbon tax. We are
responsible and we should act responsibly.

We have to get beyond denial and take the necessary action to protect our global life-support system.